"Tadić triumph may postpone independence"

Hmmm once again, another delay? And now talk that the US may not be the first to recognize independence, or even talk that it may not even happen. Mr. Burns is out, and you could only imagine what things might be like if someone like John Bolton or Eagleburger are the next choices in line for his position. It seems public opinion is turning against Kosovo independence. From Hollywood celebrities, to former secretary of states, and the head of the UN, to political activists and writers.

I would like to see how the Albanians will spin this now. It seems this news is bad. Yet another delay. Two years ago they said it would happen within weeks. Last year they said it would happen in February. Then it was December 10th. Then it was early February of this year. Now another delay?

And what will the Kosovars do? Declare independence? All signs indicate that if they were to do that, it would anger the EU and cause major difficulties. So they have two options: do nothing, or anger the very fragile coalition that supports them. The very same coalition which is now considering that their original policy is weak and open to lots of problems, especially with an emerging world power like Russia. Plus with Serbia's recent oil deal with Russia, the options of bullying Serbia and bombing them like 1999 are out of the question. Russia wouldn't allow that and would cause a major crises. Also many EU nations simply don't need another European war, or risk having their energy prices go through the roof by an angry Russia.

Once again, what will the Albanians say? How will they spin this? First I think they should lie to themselves and convince themselves that things are going smoothly and that Kosovo will be independent. It seems to be something they love to repeat, over and over and over again, even though things are not looking good for them.

You don’t have to be a Serbian linguistics to understand that this man is Serbian and he is making these statements to weaken the moral of Albanians who now are making the final preparations for independence.

The Constitution of the Republic will be published on Friday.

This news must have been published by BBC Serbian since I can not find it in BBC English. I think this should have been underlined by the translator of the news.

Why this guy doesn't host the albanians in his back garden in the US? Since US is SO keen on giving the albanians their piece of land why don't they make a reserve somewhere in the Nevada desert, just like what they did with the amaerican natives. End of the Story

I don’t know how trustworthy Mr Kesic is but if I understood well, independence is not coming that soon. All I can see that the USA is pushing EU to take unified stand and as such recognise Kosovo first. But, the EU cannot reach unified stand due to opposition form Slovakia, Romania, Cyrus and maybe Spain. This will lead to weaking the EU's inity and individual recognition will take place,but seems no one has the courage to do it first as they are all aware of breaching the international law. Obviously USA won’t do it first in order to avoid further complication in its backyard pushing the EU right into disaster.

However, I noticed that all decisions on Serbia’s sovereignty are going to be brought in Berlin (looks like some tradition) in cooperation with the White House.

"Simply, there are a lot of open questions and it cannot be guaranteed whether or when the U.S. will recognize independence.”

So now they are uncertain as to even recognise independence!

"The chief foreign policy architect, particularly towards Kosovo, Mr. Burns has, as you know, tendered his resignation."

Well, thank god for that!

The election results in Serbia were irrelevant to the
great balkans game played by the EU, US and Russia.There will be continuous Russian
blockage of any UN council attempts to legitimatise Serbias partition.In the end
Kosovo will become an EU
protectorate and unable to
join any international body
that has Serbia and Russia as
members.
On the other hand it seems highly unlikely that the EU
bureaucrats will grant any special treatment to Serbia
and fast tracked its membership candidacy.There will be more criteria inserted which will amount to
total capitulation of Serbia.

This is becoming a very interesting chess board:

First, Pristina is being told not to make any moves until it gets EU assurance. With the definitive "no's" coming from Cyprus and Romania, and an all but assured "no" coming from Slovakia and Greece, EU unity is still nonexistant. A "few" EU countries can coordinate independence, but Kosovo would then become a complete dependency on Germany, UK, France, and maybe Italy - even less legal than the quasi-legal status it seems destined to be now.

Second, Brussels has made it clear they want to support Tadic and Serbia's road to the EU. Tadic was very smart in saying he has no problem with an EU mission in Kosovo, provided it goes through the UN. That's playing the legal card, not the CCCC card, as Kostunica seems to be doing. Nevertheless, Kostunica is still the most powerful man in Serbia because he could throw his support behind either DS or SRS. Kostunica threatening to collapse the present government would throw Serbia in turmoil, and early elections could spell a DSS-SRS coalition. Brussels needs to tread carefully so as not to disprupt the tenacious stability in BG. right now they're asking themselves what's more important: a stable Serbia or an quasi-independent Kosovo. Seems like the trend is moving towards the former.

Third, by placing an EU Mission in Kosovo outside the contexts of Kosovo's final status, Tadic makes an incredibly clear choice:

a) Leave Kosovo's status off the table (i.e. keep it part of Serbia), and get BG's permission to establish a mission. It goes through the UN, it gets EU unanimity, and it gets international legitimacy. The EU assumes complete administrative oversight, but is operating within Serbian territory (in name only). Or

b) Have a few EU countries recognize controversial sovereignty over a breakaway region of an internationally recognized sovereign state outside the confines of the UN and outside the boundariers of EU unity.

Again, I have no problem with an EU Mission in Kosovo. I have absolutely no problem with international organizations helping to better the lives and infrastructures of one of Europe's poorest regions. But we seem to keep coming back to the same condition: Do it Legally, or Don't do it at All.

Hahahaha. Independent "Washington political analyst". Wait a moment. What's his name? OBRAD KESIC. Hahaha. Totally independent. But also another Washington independent political analyst called Gary Kokalari mentioned that Kosovo and elections in the neighboring country called Serbia, have nothing in common. Independence immediately, said Kokalari.

And another bad news dear serbs: Hillary won. The bad guy George W. Bush who said Kosovo should be independent, is counting his last hours. Now is coming someone else. But guess what. Hillary (as all the left wing political side of the world) is a stronger supporter of independence. Admit it please. You are on the wrong side.

Mikel

Hillary won what? The US presidential elections? Are you Nostradamus or something?

Or do you mean Hillary won 8 states while Obama won 13 with 20 delegates separating them but still needing about 1500 for nomination.

Whether Hillary wins or not makes little difference anyway. The matter is in the hands of the EU.

The article mentions inertia - actually things are pretty sluggish. Also, when things change direction the inertia may very well accelerate in the opposite direction.

There is no world-wide happiness about Kosovo as an entity dependent on the international community for its 'independence'. In fact there is quite an amount of distaste and mistrust.

The best neutral solution was autonomy, but the US (in particular) have built up a level of prejudice. However, they are not the only players and don't really want to be in the game.

The EU is going against its best principles to allow the formation of such a blatently mono-ethnically motivated state.

It should rethink quickly .

"Why this guy doesn't host the albanians in his back garden in the US? Since US is SO keen on giving the albanians their piece of land why don't they make a reserve somewhere in the Nevada desert, just like what they did with the amaerican natives. End of the Story"

Actually, Marko, this proposal has been put forward before, by some other individuals.
The agreement was that K-Albanians will go to Nevada when Serbs go to Siberia. So it's up to you to solve the problem.

Nice one Obrad Kesic.
I think more interesting for Serbs whether they are going to have governement or not. Kosova Independece issue is nice to speculate on but Serbian gov. should be more worrying for you.
Are you scared that Kosova Independece will bring down your corrupt gov. or your gov. will resign since they cannot kepp their promises of Kosovo je Serbija.

Mikel, it was not the presidential election, just "Super Tuesday" with 20-something States and territories holding their elections. The goal is to get certain number of delegates to get nominated later at party's congress.

The GOP nomination of Sen. McCain is very likely, but even he cannot be sure. As far as Clinton vs. Obama: here many things are up in the air.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8358.html

From Clinton's and Obama's or McCain's point of view Kosovo-problem is a very minor issue. How each would act we do not know. Most likely they will think, the alert level is fairly low, there is no bloodthirsty dictator in Serbia, no blood is flowing on the streets of Pristina. As usual there is some quarrel on Balkan peninsula but nothing from their point of view is critical.
The politics in Iraq and Afghanistan are spoken about on everyday basics, so there their attention goes. To make things worse, in Kenya blood is flowing at a rate much higher than during civil war in Jugoslavija. If Obama wins, we know where his attention will go. If Hillary wins, she needs the black voters again. Same for McCain. My uneducated guess: next year we may see "humanitarian bombing" in Nairobi...

Dear Robert-0, I haven't been offensive to the albanians. My post such as miri's, who is suggesting a siberian camp for us, are there as jokes. If you see something else behind my words that's your problem, b92 and most of the albanians got my message.

Have a Good Day!

Mike,

What you are "not" realizing is that your position is essentially the same as that of Kostunica. I can pretty much guarantee that he too won’t have a problem with an EU mission as long as Serbia retains sovereignty over Kosova.

Do you seriously believe anyone or anything is going to convince the Kosova Albanians to accept another ambiguous international administration without having declared independence first? That would mean nothing other than changing UNMIK to EU-MIK and that is unacceptable.

You have been bearing down on the international community with threats of apocalypse in Serbia if they go ahead with recognition of the UDI. What you don’t realize is that WE can bear down of them too if they decide to do something as outrageous as you propose.

"Why this guy doesn't host the albanians in his back garden in the US? Since US is SO keen on giving the albanians their piece of land why don't they make a reserve somewhere in the Nevada desert, just like what they did with the amaerican natives. End of the Story"

so, b92, i don't quite get it. new full explanations about no racial insults, derogatory talk, put-downs, etc (i paraphrase.) first day (?)after comes a "sarcastic" suggestion to stick all the albanians on a reservation (not "reserve," that's for animals) like the US did to the native americans. now, most of us here in the US, despite our widely varied ethnic backgrounds, find our historic treatment of native americans to be disgraceful and horrendous, at Least bordering on historic genocide. is that understood, even in far-away europe? and this is what a poster on your website appears to be calling for?? which you immediately publish?? do you understand why there is just a little bit of self-righteous anger about the prejudice and double standards coming out here? genocide is no joke guys, not in the 1800s, not in ww2, not in the balkans!

robert-0
robertoruss@yahoo.com

Hahahaha. Independent "Washington political analyst". Wait a moment. What's his name? OBRAD KESIC. Hahaha. Totally independent. But also another Washington independent political analyst called Gary Kokalari mentioned that Kosovo and elections in the neighboring country called Serbia, have nothing in common. Independence immediately, said Kokalari.

And another bad news dear serbs: Hillary won. The bad guy George W. Bush who said Kosovo should be independent, is counting his last hours. Now is coming someone else. But guess what. Hillary (as all the left wing political side of the world) is a stronger supporter of independence. Admit it please. You are on the wrong side.

You don’t have to be a Serbian linguistics to understand that this man is Serbian and he is making these statements to weaken the moral of Albanians who now are making the final preparations for independence.

The Constitution of the Republic will be published on Friday.

This news must have been published by BBC Serbian since I can not find it in BBC English. I think this should have been underlined by the translator of the news.

"Why this guy doesn't host the albanians in his back garden in the US? Since US is SO keen on giving the albanians their piece of land why don't they make a reserve somewhere in the Nevada desert, just like what they did with the amaerican natives. End of the Story"

Actually, Marko, this proposal has been put forward before, by some other individuals.
The agreement was that K-Albanians will go to Nevada when Serbs go to Siberia. So it's up to you to solve the problem.

Nice one Obrad Kesic.
I think more interesting for Serbs whether they are going to have governement or not. Kosova Independece issue is nice to speculate on but Serbian gov. should be more worrying for you.
Are you scared that Kosova Independece will bring down your corrupt gov. or your gov. will resign since they cannot kepp their promises of Kosovo je Serbija.

"Simply, there are a lot of open questions and it cannot be guaranteed whether or when the U.S. will recognize independence.”

So now they are uncertain as to even recognise independence!

"The chief foreign policy architect, particularly towards Kosovo, Mr. Burns has, as you know, tendered his resignation."

Well, thank god for that!

I don’t know how trustworthy Mr Kesic is but if I understood well, independence is not coming that soon. All I can see that the USA is pushing EU to take unified stand and as such recognise Kosovo first. But, the EU cannot reach unified stand due to opposition form Slovakia, Romania, Cyrus and maybe Spain. This will lead to weaking the EU's inity and individual recognition will take place,but seems no one has the courage to do it first as they are all aware of breaching the international law. Obviously USA won’t do it first in order to avoid further complication in its backyard pushing the EU right into disaster.

However, I noticed that all decisions on Serbia’s sovereignty are going to be brought in Berlin (looks like some tradition) in cooperation with the White House.

Hmmm once again, another delay? And now talk that the US may not be the first to recognize independence, or even talk that it may not even happen. Mr. Burns is out, and you could only imagine what things might be like if someone like John Bolton or Eagleburger are the next choices in line for his position. It seems public opinion is turning against Kosovo independence. From Hollywood celebrities, to former secretary of states, and the head of the UN, to political activists and writers.

I would like to see how the Albanians will spin this now. It seems this news is bad. Yet another delay. Two years ago they said it would happen within weeks. Last year they said it would happen in February. Then it was December 10th. Then it was early February of this year. Now another delay?

And what will the Kosovars do? Declare independence? All signs indicate that if they were to do that, it would anger the EU and cause major difficulties. So they have two options: do nothing, or anger the very fragile coalition that supports them. The very same coalition which is now considering that their original policy is weak and open to lots of problems, especially with an emerging world power like Russia. Plus with Serbia's recent oil deal with Russia, the options of bullying Serbia and bombing them like 1999 are out of the question. Russia wouldn't allow that and would cause a major crises. Also many EU nations simply don't need another European war, or risk having their energy prices go through the roof by an angry Russia.

Once again, what will the Albanians say? How will they spin this? First I think they should lie to themselves and convince themselves that things are going smoothly and that Kosovo will be independent. It seems to be something they love to repeat, over and over and over again, even though things are not looking good for them.

Why this guy doesn't host the albanians in his back garden in the US? Since US is SO keen on giving the albanians their piece of land why don't they make a reserve somewhere in the Nevada desert, just like what they did with the amaerican natives. End of the Story

The election results in Serbia were irrelevant to the
great balkans game played by the EU, US and Russia.There will be continuous Russian
blockage of any UN council attempts to legitimatise Serbias partition.In the end
Kosovo will become an EU
protectorate and unable to
join any international body
that has Serbia and Russia as
members.
On the other hand it seems highly unlikely that the EU
bureaucrats will grant any special treatment to Serbia
and fast tracked its membership candidacy.There will be more criteria inserted which will amount to
total capitulation of Serbia.

This is becoming a very interesting chess board:

First, Pristina is being told not to make any moves until it gets EU assurance. With the definitive "no's" coming from Cyprus and Romania, and an all but assured "no" coming from Slovakia and Greece, EU unity is still nonexistant. A "few" EU countries can coordinate independence, but Kosovo would then become a complete dependency on Germany, UK, France, and maybe Italy - even less legal than the quasi-legal status it seems destined to be now.

Second, Brussels has made it clear they want to support Tadic and Serbia's road to the EU. Tadic was very smart in saying he has no problem with an EU mission in Kosovo, provided it goes through the UN. That's playing the legal card, not the CCCC card, as Kostunica seems to be doing. Nevertheless, Kostunica is still the most powerful man in Serbia because he could throw his support behind either DS or SRS. Kostunica threatening to collapse the present government would throw Serbia in turmoil, and early elections could spell a DSS-SRS coalition. Brussels needs to tread carefully so as not to disprupt the tenacious stability in BG. right now they're asking themselves what's more important: a stable Serbia or an quasi-independent Kosovo. Seems like the trend is moving towards the former.

Third, by placing an EU Mission in Kosovo outside the contexts of Kosovo's final status, Tadic makes an incredibly clear choice:

a) Leave Kosovo's status off the table (i.e. keep it part of Serbia), and get BG's permission to establish a mission. It goes through the UN, it gets EU unanimity, and it gets international legitimacy. The EU assumes complete administrative oversight, but is operating within Serbian territory (in name only). Or

b) Have a few EU countries recognize controversial sovereignty over a breakaway region of an internationally recognized sovereign state outside the confines of the UN and outside the boundariers of EU unity.

Again, I have no problem with an EU Mission in Kosovo. I have absolutely no problem with international organizations helping to better the lives and infrastructures of one of Europe's poorest regions. But we seem to keep coming back to the same condition: Do it Legally, or Don't do it at All.

The article mentions inertia - actually things are pretty sluggish. Also, when things change direction the inertia may very well accelerate in the opposite direction.

There is no world-wide happiness about Kosovo as an entity dependent on the international community for its 'independence'. In fact there is quite an amount of distaste and mistrust.

The best neutral solution was autonomy, but the US (in particular) have built up a level of prejudice. However, they are not the only players and don't really want to be in the game.

The EU is going against its best principles to allow the formation of such a blatently mono-ethnically motivated state.

It should rethink quickly .

Mikel

Hillary won what? The US presidential elections? Are you Nostradamus or something?

Or do you mean Hillary won 8 states while Obama won 13 with 20 delegates separating them but still needing about 1500 for nomination.

Whether Hillary wins or not makes little difference anyway. The matter is in the hands of the EU.

Mikel, it was not the presidential election, just "Super Tuesday" with 20-something States and territories holding their elections. The goal is to get certain number of delegates to get nominated later at party's congress.

The GOP nomination of Sen. McCain is very likely, but even he cannot be sure. As far as Clinton vs. Obama: here many things are up in the air.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8358.html

From Clinton's and Obama's or McCain's point of view Kosovo-problem is a very minor issue. How each would act we do not know. Most likely they will think, the alert level is fairly low, there is no bloodthirsty dictator in Serbia, no blood is flowing on the streets of Pristina. As usual there is some quarrel on Balkan peninsula but nothing from their point of view is critical.
The politics in Iraq and Afghanistan are spoken about on everyday basics, so there their attention goes. To make things worse, in Kenya blood is flowing at a rate much higher than during civil war in Jugoslavija. If Obama wins, we know where his attention will go. If Hillary wins, she needs the black voters again. Same for McCain. My uneducated guess: next year we may see "humanitarian bombing" in Nairobi...

Mike,

What you are "not" realizing is that your position is essentially the same as that of Kostunica. I can pretty much guarantee that he too won’t have a problem with an EU mission as long as Serbia retains sovereignty over Kosova.

Do you seriously believe anyone or anything is going to convince the Kosova Albanians to accept another ambiguous international administration without having declared independence first? That would mean nothing other than changing UNMIK to EU-MIK and that is unacceptable.

You have been bearing down on the international community with threats of apocalypse in Serbia if they go ahead with recognition of the UDI. What you don’t realize is that WE can bear down of them too if they decide to do something as outrageous as you propose.

"Why this guy doesn't host the albanians in his back garden in the US? Since US is SO keen on giving the albanians their piece of land why don't they make a reserve somewhere in the Nevada desert, just like what they did with the amaerican natives. End of the Story"

so, b92, i don't quite get it. new full explanations about no racial insults, derogatory talk, put-downs, etc (i paraphrase.) first day (?)after comes a "sarcastic" suggestion to stick all the albanians on a reservation (not "reserve," that's for animals) like the US did to the native americans. now, most of us here in the US, despite our widely varied ethnic backgrounds, find our historic treatment of native americans to be disgraceful and horrendous, at Least bordering on historic genocide. is that understood, even in far-away europe? and this is what a poster on your website appears to be calling for?? which you immediately publish?? do you understand why there is just a little bit of self-righteous anger about the prejudice and double standards coming out here? genocide is no joke guys, not in the 1800s, not in ww2, not in the balkans!

robert-0
robertoruss@yahoo.com

Dear Robert-0, I haven't been offensive to the albanians. My post such as miri's, who is suggesting a siberian camp for us, are there as jokes. If you see something else behind my words that's your problem, b92 and most of the albanians got my message.

Have a Good Day!